So I agree with taxing people and using the money to provide universal healthcare, housing, food, etc. Apparently that makes me a socialist.
The correct term is social-democrat, actually. Among the different systems, social democracy has very rarely received full-throated support, but seems to have done among the best at handling the complexity of the values and value-systems that humans want to be materially represented in our societies.
(And HAHAHA!, finally I can just come out and say that without feeling the need to explain reams and reams of background material on both value-complexity and left-wing history!)
Eh, I’m not sure I’m an anything-ist. Socialist ideas make a lot of sense to me, but really I’m a read-a-few-more-books-and-go-to-university-and-then-decide-ist. If I have to stand behind any -ist, it’s going to be “scientist”. I want to do research to find out which policies most effectively make people happy, and then I want to implement those policies regardless of whether they fall in line with the ideologies that seem attractive to me.
Oh, that’s all well and good. I just tend to bring up socialism because I think that “left-wing politics” is more of a hypothesis space of political programs than a single such program (ie: the USSR), but that “bad vibes” in the West from the USSR (and lots and lots of right-wing propaganda) have tended to succeed in getting people to write off that entire hypothesis space before examining the evidence.
I do think that an ideally rational government would be “more” left-wing than right-wing, as current alignments stand, but I too think it would in fact be mixed.
Among the different systems, social democracy has very rarely received full-throated support, but seems to have done among the best at handling the complexity of the values and value-systems that humans want to be materially represented in our societies.
…among the various socio-political systems the one I prefer is the best one because it is the best… X-)
Actually, in voting and activism, I’m a full-throated socialist. Social democracy is weaksauce next to a fully-developed socialism, but we don’t have a fully-developed socialism, so you’re often stuck with the weaksauce.
And as an object-level defense: social democracy, as far as I can tell, does the best at aggregating value information about diverse domains of life and keeping any one optimization criterion from running roughshod over everything else that people happen to care about.
You know, you don’t have to jump on him and demand that he defends his socialist stance merely because he expressed it and tried to discuss it with someone else. It’s not like he’s answerable to you for being a socialist. And this is not the first time I’ve seen you and others intervene in a discussion (that otherwise didn’t involve or concern them) solely for calling out people on leftist ideas. What the hell are you doing that for?
Since he brought a downvote brigade, I’m indeed going to refrain from engaging. Those who want to know more can follow the link I posted up-thread, which goes to a leading socialist magazine to which I subscribe.
you don’t have to jump on him and demand that he defends his socialist stance merely because he expressed it
Demand? I can’t demand anything. This is an internet forum, all eli_sennesh needs to do is just ignore my comment. That seems easy enough.
solely for calling out people on leftist ideas
It’s not like it is something to be ashamed of, is it? If he says he is a “full-throated socialist” I get curious what does that mean. The last place that said it implemented a “fully-developed socialism” was USSR, but I don’t think that’s what eli_sennesh means.
The correct term is social-democrat, actually. Among the different systems, social democracy has very rarely received full-throated support, but seems to have done among the best at handling the complexity of the values and value-systems that humans want to be materially represented in our societies.
(And HAHAHA!, finally I can just come out and say that without feeling the need to explain reams and reams of background material on both value-complexity and left-wing history!)
Oh, that’s all well and good. I just tend to bring up socialism because I think that “left-wing politics” is more of a hypothesis space of political programs than a single such program (ie: the USSR), but that “bad vibes” in the West from the USSR (and lots and lots of right-wing propaganda) have tended to succeed in getting people to write off that entire hypothesis space before examining the evidence.
I do think that an ideally rational government would be “more” left-wing than right-wing, as current alignments stand, but I too think it would in fact be mixed.
Have some reading material!
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Every system that works is covert or overt meritocracy. Social democracy works, so ….
Misformatted link at the end of the sentence?
…among the various socio-political systems the one I prefer is the best one because it is the best… X-)
Actually, in voting and activism, I’m a full-throated socialist. Social democracy is weaksauce next to a fully-developed socialism, but we don’t have a fully-developed socialism, so you’re often stuck with the weaksauce.
And as an object-level defense: social democracy, as far as I can tell, does the best at aggregating value information about diverse domains of life and keeping any one optimization criterion from running roughshod over everything else that people happen to care about.
For which value of the word “socialism”?
You just repeated your assertion, you didn’t provide any arguments or evidence.
You know, you don’t have to jump on him and demand that he defends his socialist stance merely because he expressed it and tried to discuss it with someone else. It’s not like he’s answerable to you for being a socialist. And this is not the first time I’ve seen you and others intervene in a discussion (that otherwise didn’t involve or concern them) solely for calling out people on leftist ideas. What the hell are you doing that for?
Since he brought a downvote brigade, I’m indeed going to refrain from engaging. Those who want to know more can follow the link I posted up-thread, which goes to a leading socialist magazine to which I subscribe.
Demand? I can’t demand anything. This is an internet forum, all eli_sennesh needs to do is just ignore my comment. That seems easy enough.
It’s not like it is something to be ashamed of, is it? If he says he is a “full-throated socialist” I get curious what does that mean. The last place that said it implemented a “fully-developed socialism” was USSR, but I don’t think that’s what eli_sennesh means.